Reading List:

A how-to handbook, which tries to tell you everything you would need
to know to build good websites. The authors have a respectable
pedigree in human-computer interaction research, and present their
knowledge in an accessible and professional way.

This is the textbook that I use in my own introductory HCI course,
selected because it provides advice that could be directly interpreted
by a graduate finding him/herself in a job with responsibility for
interaction design. This covers interaction with many other kinds of
software and hardware, not just websites.

John Heskett
Toothpicks & Logos: Design in Everyday Life
Oxford University Press 2002

An excellent introduction to the idea of design as a coherent body of
practice, ranging across the whole range of design professions,
products and histories.

An unusually constructive attempt to apply postmodern philosophy to
the concerns of contemporary technology design. A good book to have at
hand if you want to confuse or worry your acquaintances who are
studying computer science.

The best single volume introduction to the diverse economic,
educational, social and political factors that result in the
exaggeration of existing inequalities when digital technologies are
being deployed.

Charles Leadbeater
We-think: Innovation by the massess not for the masses
Profile 2007 (collaborative online publication)

We-Think: the power of mass creativity is about what the rise of the
likes of Wikipedia and Youtube, Linux and Craigslist means for the way
we organise ourselves, not just in digital businesses but in schools
and hospitals, cities and mainstream corporations.

The book of a conference convened by Alan Blackwell and the Arts
Council of England at Queens' College in 2001. Authors from a wide
range of academic disciplines consider the various problems that
modern society must face in the management and exploitation of
intellectual property. Although highlighted in the use of computers,
many of these issues have more far-reaching consequences for our
understanding of contemporary society.

A work of applied semiotics, describing the nature of the user
interface as a mediated conversation between the designer and
user. Intended as a corrective to the "man-machine" systems
view. although perhaps unsurprising to an informed student of
linguistics.

A textbook that I use myself, but mainly for the benefit of students
who take an interest in what kind of research opportunities exist in
the field of HCI. It describes a wide range of current research
approaches (including my own), each in a chapter that extends from
history and theoretical introduction to current research issues.

Dourish is a computer scientist writing philosophy for a broad
audience, attempting to develop a theory of interaction that will be
adequate for new developments in ubiquitous computing and
computer-mediated social encounters.

A review of a long series of collaborations with visiting artists at
the Creativity and Cognition Research Studio in Loughborough. Candy
and Edmonds are now based in Australia, in the University of Sydney.

Dunne is a professor at the Royal College of Art, where he is
responsible for their Master's Programme in Computer Related
Design. This book describes many of the philosophical foundations of
that course, particularly in changing the nature of our engagement
with digital technology. The book is based on Dunne's PhD
dissertation, and provides a valuable insight into the nature of
"practice-based" research conducted in schools of art and design.